A tale of two cities: How Quebec and Ontario are deconfining their metropolises

"Both the Ontario and Quebec governments are taking calculated risks at this point in their deconfinement plans. Despite both of them relying on a public health rhetoric to justify their decisions, they clearly have different rationales and priorities, economic or otherwise."

People walk through Trinity Bellwoods park near the fenced off cherry blossoms under the watchful eye of by-law enforcement. Richard Lautens/Toronto Star

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Quebec and Ontario have systematically been the hardest hit provinces in the country. Their respective biggest cities, Montreal and Toronto, are where the lion’s share of identified COVID-19 cases reside. It is in these two cities, to cite only that example, that members of the Canadian Armed Forces have been deployed in long-term care homes in order to contain the pandemic.

Both provinces have started to shed light on their respective reopening plans. Premiers Legault and Ford have diverged on the best route to recovery, both in message and in substance. Legault came out with precise dates for the reopening of schools (which were subsequently revised), then businesses, while Ford first came out with a three-step deconfinement strategy based on the observation of trends in the number of active cases rather than giving specific dates, starting with small businesses. Education minister Stephen Lecce already announced that schools in Ontario would not reopen until September.

Both provinces also diverged in how they have decided to reopen their metropolises, which have consistently been COVID hotspots since the beginning of the pandemic. While Legault is holding Montreal back and letting regions where the outbreak has been contained move towards a “new normal” at a faster pace, Ford has made no such provisions for Toronto, and is moving forward on a province-wide basis.

Observers of Ontario politics might find this strange, considering how much attention Doug Ford has paid to Toronto. Indeed, the micro-management of Toronto has been a trademark of the Ford premiership since the 2018 election. Every Torontonian will remember the provincial takeover of Toronto’s subway lines or the premier’s decision to slash the number of seats on the Toronto City council by half, in the middle of the municipal election. It is somewhat puzzling then to think of how Ford’s decision to let Toronto reopen at the same rate as the rest of the province can be explained.

First, when we look at the numbers, the two cities offer a stark contrast — especially taking into consideration that Toronto has roughly 30 per cent more residents and its downtown core is denser than Montreal’s. As of May 19, Toronto had 9,129 cases and 716 deaths, whereas on May 20, Montreal reported 22,363 cases and 2,367 deaths. There are several possible reasons for these differences. The timing of the two provinces’ spring break (Quebec’s being the earliest of all provinces) may have had an impact, with Quebeckers being less wary of travelling down south during their vacation as travel advisories had not yet been put in place. There are also the great numbers of retired Quebeckers who came home from Florida in March (the phenomenon commonly called the “Snowbirds”), several of whom allegedly refused to self-isolate for fourteen days as requested by the Canadian government.

However, as researchers have warned, we must be careful when comparing numbers between provinces, as standards and rates of testing vary wildly. Indeed, Ontario trailed far behind Quebec in the number of tests performed daily, regularly coming short of the premier’s promises, with drastic results on the number of declared COVID-19 cases. The relatively low number of positive cases in Toronto may have created a (possibly false) sense of security, pushing the government to reopen its capital at the same rate as the rest of the province.

Second, and this might be of far more importance to the current Ontario government, is the fact that Toronto is the economic hub of the province, and indeed, the whole country. In the 2018 election, Doug Ford ran on a platform mostly focused on “cleaning the mess in government”, making a dent in the provincial deficit and fostering economic growth. The COVID-19 outbreak seems to have relegated these priorities to a later time, as the province has loosened the proverbial purse strings, coming with over $17B in emergency funds to face the pandemic. Ontario, like every government, is expected to face its highest-ever deficit this year.

It may then come as no surprise, not only that the first Ontario measures to reopen the province targeted businesses rather than schools like in Quebec, but that the premier would want Toronto to reopen as fast as possible, in order to curb the economic damage already made by the pandemic. While the onus to get Montreal’s economy back on track might be the same for Legault, the pressure seems to not be registering to the same extent with his government.

Both the Ontario and Quebec governments are taking calculated risks at this point in their deconfinement plans. Despite both of them relying on a public health rhetoric to justify their decisions, they clearly have different rationales and priorities, economic or otherwise. It is too early to tell whether Ford should have taken a page from Legault’s playbook with respect to deconfining Ontario or whether Quebec and Ontario’s measures will have different impacts on the spread of COVID-19.

In any case, a second wave of outbreaks, which is by now widely expected to hit Canada in the near future, might get both governments to clamp back down on its population. Toronto and Montreal, then, might only get a short respite before being, once again, in the eye of the storm.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.

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Stéphanie Chouinard joined the Department of Political Science at the Royal Military College in 2017 and was cross-appointed to Queen's University in 2018. She was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Law, Université de Montréal. Her research focuses on official languages, constitutional politics, federalism, intergovernmental relations, and Indigenous-settler relations.